THE FOLLY OF LOOKING BACK IN FLEEING OUT OF SODOM.

Remember Lot's Wife (Luke 17:32).

CHRIST here foretells his coming in his kingdom, in answer to the question
which the Pharisees asked him, viz. When the kingdom of God should come.
And in what he says of his coming, he, evidently has respect to two things;
his coming at the destruction of Jerusalem, and his coming at the end of
the world. He compares his coming at those times to the coming of God in
two remarkable judgments that were past; first, to that in the time of the
flood; " and as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in
the days of the Son of man. [64] " Next, he compares it to the destruction
of Sodom and Gomorrah; "likewise also, as it was in the days of Lot,
even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed."

Then he immediately proceeds to direct his people how they should behave
themselves at the appearance of the signal of that day's approach, referring
especially to the destruction of Jerusalem. Luke xxvii. 31. "In that
day, he which shall be upon the house-top, and his stuff in the house, let
him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him
likewise not return back." In which words Christ shows that they should
make the utmost haste to flee and get out of the city to the mountains,
as he commands, Matt. xxiv. 15-18 &c.-"When ye therefore shall
see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand
in the holy place, then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains;
let him which is in the house-top not come down to take any thing out of
the house, neither let him which is in the field turn back to take his clothes."

Jerusalem was like Sodom, in that it was devoted to destruction, by special
divine wrath; and indeed to a more terrible destruction than that of Sodom.
Therefore the like direction is given concerning fleeing out of it with
the utmost haste, without looking behind, as the angel gave to Lot, when
he bid him flee out of Sodom, Gen. xix. 17. "Escape for thy life; look
not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain." And in the text
Christ enforces his counsel by the instance of Lot's wife. He bids them
remember her, and take warning by her, who looked back as she was fleeing
out of Sodom, and became a pillar of salt.

If it be inquired why Christ gave this direction to his people to flee
out of Jerusalem, in such exceeding haste, at the first notice of the signal
of her approaching destruction; I answer, it seems to be, because fleeing
out of Jerusalem was a type of fleeing out of a state of sin. Escaping out
of that unbelieving city typified an escape out of a state of unbelief.
Therefore they were directed to flee without staying to take any thing out
of their houses, to signify with what haste and concern we should flee out
of a natural condition, that no respect to any worldly enjoyment should
prevent us one moment, and that we should flee to Jesus Christ, the refuge
of souls, our strong rock, and the mount of our defence, so as, in fleeing
to him, to leave and forsake heartily all earthly things.

This seems to be the chief reason also why Lot was directed to make such
haste, and not to look behind; because his fleeing out of Sodom was designed
on purpose to be a type of our fleeing from that state of sin and misery
in which we naturally are.

DOCTRINE.

We ought not to look back when we are fleeing out of Sodom. The following
reasons may be sufficient to support this doctrine:

1. That Sodom is a city full of filthiness and abominations. It is full
of those impurities that ought to be had in the utmost abhorrence and detestation
by all. The inhabitants of it are a polluted company, they are all under
the power and dominion of hateful lusts. All their faculties and affections
are polluted with those vile dispositions that are unworthy of the human
nature, that greatly debase it, that are exceedingly hateful to God, and
that dreadfully incense his anger. Every kind of spiritual abomination abounds
in it. There is nothing so hateful and abominable but that there it is to
be found, and there it abounds.

Sodom is a city full of devils and all unclean spirits: there they have
their rendezvous, and there they have their dominion. There they sport,
and wallow in filthiness, as it is said of mystical Babylon, Rev. xviii.
2. Babylon is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul
spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.-Who would be of
such a society? who would not flee from such a city with the utmost haste,
and never look back upon it, and never have the least inclination of returning?

Some in Sodom may seem to carry a fair face, and make a fair outward
show; but if we could look into their hearts, they are every one altogether
filthy and abominable. We ought to flee from such a city, with the utmost
abhorrence of the place and society, with no desires to dwell longer there,
and never to discover the least inclination to return to it: but should
be desirous to get to the greatest possible distance from it, that we might
in no wise be partakers in her abominations.

2. We ought not to look back when fleeing out of Sodom, because Sodom
is a city appointed to destruction. The cry of the city hath reached up
to heaven. The earth cannot bear such a burden as her inhabitants are; she
will therefore disburden herself of them, and spew them out. God will not
suffer such a city to stand; he will consume it. God is holy, and his nature
is infinitely opposite to all such uncleanness; he will therefore be a consuming
fire to it. The holiness of God will not suffer it to stand, and the majesty
and justice of God require that the inhabitants of that city who thus offend
and provoke him be destroyed. And God will surely destroy them; it is the
immutable and irreversible decree of God.-He hath said it, and he will do
it. The decree is gone forth, and so sure as there is a God, and he is almighty,
and able to fulfil his decrees and threatenings, so surely will he destroy
Sodom. Gen. xix. 12, 13. "Whatsoever thou hast in this city, bring
them out of this place; for we will destroy this place, because the cry
of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord hath sent
us to destroy it." And in ver. 14. "Up, get ye out of this place,
for the Lord will destroy this city."

This city is an accursed city; it is destined to ruin.-Therefore, as
we would not be partakers of her curse, and would not be destroyed, we should
flee out of it, and not look behind us, Rev. xviii. 4. "Come out of
her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive
not of her plagues."

3. We ought not to look back when fleeing out of Sodom, because the destruction
to which it is appointed is exceedingly dreadful: it is appointed to utter
destruction, to be wholly and entirely consumed. It is appointed to suffer
the wrath of the great God, which is to be poured down from God upon it,
like a dreadful storm of fire and brimstone. This city is to be filled full
of the wrath of God. Every one that remains in it shall have the fire of
God's wrath come down on his head and into his soul: he shall be full of
fire and full of the wrath of the Almighty. He shall be encompassed with
fire without and full of fire within: his head, his heart, his bowels, and
all his limbs shall be full of fire, and not a drop of water to cool him.

Nor shall he have any place to flee to for relief. Go where he will,
there is the fire of God's wrath: his destruction and torment will be inevitable.-He
shall be destroyed without any pity. He shall cry aloud, but there shall
be none to help, there shall be none to regard his lamentations, or to afford
relief. The decree is gone forth, and the days come when Sodom shall burn
as an oven, and all the inhabitants thereof shall be as stubble. As it was
in the literal Sodom, the whole city was full of fire: in their houses there
was no safety, for they were all on fire; and if they fled out into the
streets, they also were full of fire. Fire continually came down out of
heaven every where.-That was a dismal time. What a cry was there then in
that city, in every part of it! But there was none to help; they had no
where to go, where they could hide their heads from fire: they had none
to pity or relieve them. If they fled to their friends, they could not help
them.

Now, with what haste should we flee from a city appointed to such a destruction!
and how should we flee without looking behind us! how should it be our whole
intent, to get at the greatest distance from a city in such circumstances!
how far should we be from thinking at all of returning to a city which has
such wrath hanging over it!

4. The destruction to which Sodom is appointed is an universal destruction.
None that stay in it shall escape: none will have the good fortune to be
in any by-corner, where the fire will not search them out. All sorts, old
and young, great and small, shall be destroyed. There shall be no exception
of any age, or any sex, or any condition, but all shall perish together.
Gen. xix. 24, 25. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities
and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which
grew upon the ground." We therefore must not delay or look behind us;
for there is no place of safety in Sodom, nor in all the plain on which
Sodom is built. The mountain of safety is before us, and not behind us.

5. The destruction to which Sodom is appointed is an everlasting destruction.
This is said of the literal Sodom, that it suffered the vengeance of eternal
fire, Jude 7. "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them,
in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange
flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire." The destruction that Sodom and Gomorrah suffered was an eternal
destruction: those cities were destroyed, and have never been built since,
and are not capable of being rebuilt; for the land on which they stood at
the time of their destruction sunk, and has been ever since covered with
the lake of Sodom or the Dead sea, or as it is called in Scripture, the
Salt Sea. This seems to have been thus ordered on purpose to be a type
of the eternal destruction of ungodly men. So that fire by which they were
destroyed is called eternal fire, because it was so typically, it
was a type of the eternal destruction of ungodly men; which may be in part
what is intended, when it is said in that text in Jude, that they were set
forth for an example, or for a type or representation of the eternal fire
in which all the ungodly are to be consumed.

Sodom has in all ages since been covered with a lake which was first
brought on it by fire and brimstone, to be a type of the lake of fire and
brimstone in which ungodly men shall have their part for ever and ever,
as we read Rev. xx. 15. and elsewhere.-We ought not therefore to look back
when fleeing out of Sodom, seeing that the destruction to which it is appointed
is an eternal destruction; for this renders the destruction infinitely dreadful.

6. Sodom is a city appointed to swift and sudden destruction. The destruction
is not only certain and inevitable, and infinitely dreadful, but it will
come speedily. "Their judgment lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth
not;" 2 Pet. ii. 3. And so Deut. xxxii. 35. "The day of their
calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste."-The
storm of wrath, the black clouds of divine vengeance, even now every moment
hang over them, just ready to break forth and come down in a dreadful manner
upon them. God hath already whet his sword and bent his bow, and made ready
his arrow on the string, Psalm vii. 12. Therefore we should make haste,
and not look behind us. For if we linger and stop to look back, and flee
not for our lives, there is great danger that we shall be involved in the
common ruin.

The destruction of Sodom is not only swift, but will come suddenly and
unexpectedly.-It seems to have been a fair morning in Sodom before it was
destroyed. Gen. xix. 23. It seems that there were no clouds to be seen,
no appearance of any storm at all, much less of a storm of fire and brimstone.
The inhabitants of Sodom expected no such thing; even when Lot told his
sons-in-law of it, they would not believe it; Gen. xix. 14.-They were making
merry; their hearts were at ease, they thought nothing of such a calamity
at hand. But it came at once, as travail upon a woman with child, and there
was no escaping; as ver. 28,29. " They did eat, they drank; they bought,
they sold; they planted, they builded: but the same day that Lot went out
of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all."

So it is with wicked men; Psalm lxxiii. 19. "How are they brought
into desolation in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors."-If
therefore we linger and look back, we may be suddenly overtaken and seized
with destruction.

7. There is nothing in Sodom that is worth looking back upon. All the
enjoyments of Sodom will soon perish in the common destruction; all will
be burnt up. And surely it is not worth the while to look back on things
that are perishing and consuming in the flames, as it is with all the enjoyments
of sin; they are all appointed to the fire. Therefore it is foolish for
any who are fleeing out of Sodom to hanker any more after them; for when
they are burnt up, what good can they do? And is it worth the while for
us to return back for the sake of a moment's enjoyment of them, before they
are burnt, and so expose ourselves to be burnt up with them?

Lot's wife looked back, because she remembered the pleasant things that
she left in Sodom. She hankered after them; she could not but look back
with a wishful eye upon the city, where she had lived in such ease and pleasure.
Sodom was a place of great outward plenty; they ate the fat, and drank the
sweet. The soil about Sodom was exceedingly fruitful; it is said to be as
the garden of God, Gen. xii. 10. And fulness of bread was one
of the sins of the place, Ezek. xvi. 49.

Here Lot and his wife lived plentifully; and it was a place where the
inhabitants wallowed in carnal pleasures and delights. But however much
it abounded in these things, what were they worth now, when the city was
burning? Lot's wife was very foolish in lingering in her escape, for the
sake of things which were all on fire.-So the enjoyments, the profits, and
pleasures of sin, have the wrath and curse of God on them: brimstone is
scattered on them; hell-fire is ready to kindle on them. It is not therefore
worth while for any person to look back after such things.

8. We are warned by messengers sent to us from God to make haste in our
flight from Sodom, and not to look behind us. God sends to us his ministers,
the angels of the churches, on this grand errand, as he sent the angels
to warn Lot and his wife to flee for their lives, Gen. xix. 15, 16.-If we
delay or look back, now that we have had such fair warning, we shall be
exceedingly inexcusable and monstrously foolish.

APPLICATION.

The use that I would make of this doctrine, is to warn those who
are in a natural condition to flee out of it, and by no means to look back.
While you are out of Christ, you are in Sodom. The whole history of the
destruction of Sodom, with all its circumstances, seems to be inserted in
the Scriptures for our warning, and is set forth for an example, as the
apostle Jude says. It in a lively manner typifies the case of natural men,
the destruction of those that continue in a natural state, and the manner
of their escape who flee to Christ. The psalmist, when speaking of the appointed
punishment of ungodly men, seems evidently to refer to the destruction of
Sodom, Psalm xi. 6. "Upon the wicked God shall rain snares, fire, and
brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup."

Consider therefore, you that are seeking an interest in Christ, you are
to flee out of Sodom. Sodom is the place of your nativity, and the place
where you have spent your lives. You are citizens of that city which is
full of filthiness and abomination before God, that polluted and accursed
city. You belong to that impure society. You not only live among them, but
you are of them, you have committed those abominations, and have so provoked
God as you have heard. It is you that I have all this while been speaking
of under this doctrine; you are the inhabitants of Sodom. Perhaps you may
look on your circumstances as not very dreadful; but you dwell in Sodom.-Though
you may be reformed, and appear with a clean outside, and a smooth face
to the world; yet as long as you are in a natural condition, you are impure
inhabitants of Sodom.

The world of mankind is divided into two companies, or, as I may say,
into two cities: there is the city of Zion, the church of God, the holy
and beloved city; and there is Sodom, that polluted and accursed city, which
is appointed to destruction. You belong to the latter of these. How much
soever you may look upon yourselves as better than some others, you are
of the same city; the same company with fornicators, and drunkards, and
adulterers, and common swearers, and highwaymen, and pirates, and Sodomites.
How much soever you may think yourselves distinguished, as long as you are
out of Christ you belong to the very same society; you are of the company,
you join with them, and are no better than they, any otherwise than as you
have greater restraints. You are considered in the sight of God as fit to
be ranked with them. You and they are altogether the objects of loathing
and abhorrence, and have the wrath of God abiding on you; you will go with
them and be destroyed with them, if you do not escape from your present
slate. Yea, you are of the same society and the same company with the devils,
for Sodom is not only the city of wicked men, but it is the hold of every
foul spirit.

You belong to that city which is appointed to an awful, inevitable, universal,
swift, and sudden destruction; a city that hath a storm of fire and wrath
hanging over it. Many of you are convinced of the awful state you are in
while in Sodom, and are making some attempts to escape from the wrath which
hangs over it. Let such be warned by what has been said, to escape for their
lives, and not to look back. Look not back, unless you choose to have a
share in the burning tempest that is coming down on that city.-Look not
back in remembrance of the enjoyments which you have had in Sodom, as hankering
after the pleasant things which you have had there, after the ease, the
security, and the pleasure which you have there enjoyed.

Remember Lot's wife, for she looked back, as being loth utterly and for
ever to leave the ease, the pleasure, and plenty which she enjoyed in Sodom,
and as having a mind to return to them again: remember what became of her.-Remember
the children of Israel in the wilderness, who were desirous of going back
again into Egypt. Numb. xi. 5. "We remember the flesh which we did
eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks and onions,
and the garlick." Remember what was the issue. You must be willing
for ever to leave all the ease, and pleasure, and profit of sin, to forsake
all for salvation, as Lot forsook all, and left all he had, to escape out
of Sodom.

THE doctrine from these words was, That we ought not to look back
when we are fleeing out of Sodom.-Having confirmed this doctrine by
several reasons, we came to the application of it in a use of warning to
sinners in a natural state, and especially to those who are awakened and
convinced of the awful state in which they are, and are desirous of escaping
the wrath which is to come. And further to enforce this warning, let me
entreat all you who are in this state, to consider the several things which
I shall now mention:

1. The destruction of which you are in danger is infinitely more dreadful
than that destruction of the literal Sodom from which Lot fled. The destruction
of Sodom and Gomorrah in a storm of fire and brimstone, was but a shadow
of the destruction of ungodly men in hell, and is no more to it than a shadow
or a picture is to a reality, or than painted fire is to real fire. The
misery of hell is set forth by various shadows and images in Scripture,
as blackness of darkness, a never-dying worm, a furnace of fire, a lake
of fire and brimstone, the torments of the valley of the son of Hinnom,
a storm of fire and brimstone. The reason why so many similitudes are used,
is because none of them are sufficient. Any one does but partly and very
imperfectly represent the truth, and therefore God makes use of many.

You have therefore much more need to make haste in your escape, and not
to look behind you, than Lot and his wife had when they fled out of Sodom;
for you are every day and every moment in danger of a thousand times more
dreadful storm coming on your heads, than that which came on Sodom, when
the Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven upon them;
so that it will be vastly more sottish in you to look back than it was in
Lot's wife.

2. The destruction of which you are in danger is not only greater than
the temporal destruction of Sodom, but greater than the eternal destruction
of the inhabitants of Sodom. For however well you may think you have behaved
yourselves, you who have continued impenitent under the glorious gospel,
have sinned more, and provoked God far more, and have greater guilt upon
you, than the inhabitants of Sodom; although you may seem to yourselves,
and perhaps to others, to be very harmless creatures. Matt. x. 15. "Verily
I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the
day of judgment, than for that city."

3. Multitudes, while they; have been looking back, have been suddenly
overtaken and seized by the storm of wrath. The wrath of God hath not delayed,
while they have delayed; it has not waited at all for them to turn about
and flee; but has presently seized them, and they have been past hope. When
Lot's wife looked back, she was immediately destroyed, God had exercised
patience towards her before. When she lingered at the setting out, the angels
pressed her, and her husband and children, to make haste. Not only so, but
when they yet delayed, they brought her forth, and set her without the city,
the Lord being merciful to her. But now when, notwithstanding this mercy,
and the warnings which had been given her, she looked back, God exercised
no more patience towards her, but proceeded immediately to put her to death.

Now God has in like manner been merciful to you. You in time past have
been lingering; you have been warned by the angel of your danger, and pressed
to make haste and flee; yet you have delayed. And now at length God hath
as it were laid hold on you, by the convictions of his Spirit, to draw you
out of Sodom; and therefore remember Lot's wife. If now, after all,
you should look back, when God hath been so merciful to you, you will have
reason to fear, that God will suddenly destroy you. Multitudes, when they
have been looking back, and putting off to another time, have never had
another opportunity; they have been suddenly destroyed, and that without
remedy.

4. If you look back, and live long after it, there will be great danger
that you will never get any further. The only way to seek salvation is to
press forward with all your might, and still to look and press forward,
never to stand still or slacken your pace. When Lot's wife stopped in her
flight and stood still in order that she might look, her punishment was,
that there she was to stand for ever; she never got any further; she never
got beyond that place: but there she stood as a pillar of salt, a durable
pillar and monument of wrath, for her folly and wickedness.

So it was very often with backsliders, though they may live a considerable
time after. When they look back, after they have been taking pains for their
salvation, they lose all, they put themselves under vast disadvantages;
by quenching the Spirit of God, and losing their convictions, they dreadfully
harden their own hearts, and stupify their souls. They make way for discouragements,
dreadfully strengthen and establish the interest of sin in their hearts,
many ways give Satan great advantages to ruin them, and provoke God oftentimes
utterly to leave them to hardness of heart. When they come to look back,
their souls presently become dead and hard like the body of Lot's wife.
And though they live long after, they never get any further; it is worse
for them than if they were immediately damned. When persons in fleeing out
of Sodom look back, their last case is far worse than the first; Matt. xii.
43, 44, 45. And experience confirms, that none ordinarily are so hard to
be brought to repentance as backsliders.

5. It may well stir you up to flee for your lives, and not to look behind
you, when you consider how many have lately fled to the mountain, while
you yet remain in Sodom. To what multitudes hath God given the wisdom to
flee to Christ, the mountain of safety! They have fled to the little city
Zoar, which God will spare and never destroy. How many have you seen of
all sorts resorting out of Sodom thither, as believing the word of God by
the angels, that God would surely destroy that place. They are in a safe
condition; they are got out of the reach of the storm; the fire and brimstone
can do them no hurt there.

But you yet remain in that cursed city among that accursed company. You
are yet in Sodom, which God is about so terribly to destroy, where you are
in danger every minute of having snares, fire, and brimstone, come down
on your head.-Though so many have obtained, yet you have not obtained deliverance.
Good has come, but you have seen none of it. Others are happy, but no man
knows what will become of you: you have no part nor lot in that glorious
salvation of souls, which has lately been among us.-The consideration of
this should stir you up effectually to escape, and in your escape to press
forward-still to press forward-and to resolve to press forward for ever,
let what will be in the way, to hearken to no temptation, and never to look
back, or in any wise slacken or abate your endeavours as long as you live,
but if possible to increase in them more and more.

6. Backsliding after such a time as this, [65] will have a vastly greater
tendency to seal a man's damnation than at another time. The greater means
men have, the louder calls and the greater advantages they are under, the
more dangerous is backsliding, the more it has a tendency to enhance guilt,
to provoke God, and to harden the heart.

We, in this land of light, have long enjoyed greater advantages than
most of the world. But the advantages which persons are under now for their
salvation, are perhaps tenfold what they have been at such times as we have
ordinarily lived in; and backsliding will be proportionably the greater
sin, and the more dangerous to the soul. You have seen God's glory and his
wonders amongst us, in a most marvellous manner.-If therefore you look back
after this, there will be great danger that God will swear in his wrath,
that you shall never enter into his rest; as God sware concerning them that
were for going back into Egypt, after they had seen the wonders which God
wrought for Israel. Numb. xiv. 22, 23. "Because all those men that
have seen my glory and my miracles that I did in Egypt, and in the wilderness,
and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;
surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither
shall any of them that provoked me see it."-The wonders that we have
seen among us of late, have been of a more glorious nature than those that
the children of Israel saw in Egypt and in the wilderness.

7. We know not but that great part of the wicked world are, at this day,
in Sodom's circumstances, when Lot fled out of it; having some outward,
temporal destruction hanging over it. It looks as if some great thing were
coming; the state of things in the world seems to be ripe for some great
revolution. The world has got to such a terrible degree of wickedness, that
it is probable the cry of it has reached up to heaven; and it is hardly
probable that God will suffer things to go on, as they now do, much longer.
It is likely that God will ere long appear in awful majesty to vindicate
his own cause; and then none will be safe that are out of Christ. Now therefore
every one should flee for his life, and escape to the mountain, lest he
be consumed. We cannot certainly tell what God is about to do, but this
we may know, that those who are out of Christ are in a most unsafe state.

8. To enforce this warning against looking back, let me beseech you to
consider the exceeding proneness to it there is in the heart. The heart
of man is a backsliding heart. There is in the heart a great love and hankering
desire after the ease, pleasure, and enjoyments of Sodom, as there was in
Lot's wife, by which persons are continually liable to temptations to look
back. The heart is so much towards Sodom, that it is a difficult thing to
keep the eye from turning that way, and the feet from tending thither. When
men under convictions are put upon fleeing, it is a mere force, it is because
God lays hold on their hands, as he did on Lot's and his wife's, and drags
them so far. But the tendency of the heart is to go back to Sodom.

Persons are very prone to backsliding also through discouragement. The
heart is unsteady, soon tired, and apt to listen to discouraging temptations.
A little difficulty and delay soon overcome its feeble resolutions. And
discouragement tends to backsliding: it weakens persons' hands, lies as
a dead weight on their hearts, and makes them drag heavily; and if it continue
long, it very often issues in security and senselessness. Convictions are
often shaken off that way: they begin first to go off with discouragement.
Backsliding is a disease that is exceeding secret in its way of working.
It is a flattering distemper; it works like a consumption, wherein persons
often flatter themselves that they are not worse, but something better,
and in a hopeful way to recover, till a few days before they die. So backsliding
commonly comes on gradually, and steals on men insensibly, and they still
flatter themselves that they are not backslidden.-They plead that they are
seeking yet, and they hope they have not lost their convictions. And by
the time they find it out, and cannot pretend so any longer, they are commonly
so far gone, that they care not much if they have lost their convictions.
And when it is come to that, it is commonly a gone case as to those convictions.
Thus they blind themselves, and keep themselves insensible of their own
disease, and so are not terrified with it, nor awakened to use means for
relief, till it is past cure.

Thus it is that backsliding commonly comes upon persons that have for
some time been under any considerable convictions, and afterwards lose them.
Let the consideration of this your danger excite you to the greatest care
and diligence to keep your hearts, and to watchfulness and constant prayer
against backsliding. And let it put you upon endeavours to strengthen your
resolutions of guarding against every thing that tends to the contrary,
that you may indeed hold out to the end, for then shall you know, if
you follow on to know the Lord.